trying something different

I wake up and realise it is Sunday morning and I must of set my alarm for 05:30 as I am at work this morning,

‘Oh yer I’m working this morning’

So I lay there for about ten minutes trying to wake up, it’s not easy as last night I was out having one or two drinks with friends at my local. I’m lying there playing a game on my phone then decide to get up and have a shower. Good job I set the heating to come on at 05:00 last night because it feels bloody cold outside as I left the window open all night, ‘stupid’. I eventually get out of bed and stagger over to the bathroom and put the shower on just so to warm it up. After spending ten minutes washing and letting the hot water rush down over me I slip a little getting out of the shower but luckily I did not hurt myself for a change. I’m a little clumsy like that, as I chuckle to myself. I head back to the bedroom and decide to wear black combat trousers and a black and white Lonsdale T-shirt. Once I am dressed I walk down to the kitchen and make breakfast and decide to make porridge with brown sugar on top, a glass of pomegranate juice and a coffee.

I get my I.D for entrance to work in my knee pocket and my little black book for any incidents that may happen on the ward, for times dates who, what and where, oh yer and my mobile just so I can keep up to dates with news, Facebook and Twitter, in my break only of course. I finish breakfast and wash up as any good husband would after food. Put on my coat and unlock the door and quietly shut and lock the door, so not to wake my sleeping wife who is off today. Then I head down the street where I live and look around and notice how quiet it is apart from the humming of a police helicopter hovering above but over to the left a little. The helicopter must be on the lookout for a criminal, hopefully not a missing child or vulnerable adult. After another fifteen minutes of walking I am in town going to Costa coffee for a skinny flat white and of course I collect my points with them lol. In town I watch people as I walk slowly through town watching people, some staggering, must have had a good night as they are dressed the way you would of if you went into town. Some of them are young and some are older maybe in their late twenties to middle thirties, must have been a heavy night for them. I walk round the back of some pubs and shops to head for work and there I can smell things like you would in a night club toilet. I sniff and the smell that waffs through my nose is the nasty sting of stale urine and drying vomit. Over to the left between a back end of a pub and another alley is some poor bloke bending over making strange retching noises while his body shakes, then all of a sudden you can hear liquid hitting the floor and splatting. Just hope that the vomit does not rebound and spray over his shoes as he will regret this later. As I pass him by all I can hear him say is

‘Oh shit, that tastes shit’

I continue drinking my coffee as nothing bothers me with drinking or eating my food, years of experience. I walk down the main road and see young lads about in their twenties must be about four of them walking towards me acting like tough guys swearing and shouting at passing motorists. I do the sensible thing and cross the road. They then look at me and mutter amongst themselves and cross the road as well. I say to myself

‘Here we go’

My senses heighten as in my job it calls for you to be aware of possible problems and incidents. I stand tall and act as I am confident but inside I am thinking ‘shit, shit fight time’ and as the lads approach the cocky smaller lad, think he must have small man syndrome and says to me

‘Give me a fucking fag’

‘Excuse me’ I reply.

‘I said give me a fucking fag’ he repeats.

At this point his mates start to space out as if to intimidate me, at this point I am ready for one of three senses, Fight, Flight or Fight. I stand tall and said to the cocky little sod,

‘I don’t smoke’

I start to walk past him and he steps in front of me smiling like a wonabe gangster. Then her says again’

‘Give me a fuckin fag’

‘Ok’ I reply

‘Do you really want to do this, I told you I don’t smoke’

I look around at the others two look as if I don’t want to be here and one taller drunk looking lad looks like he wants to take on the world. The lad that wants to smoke stands there with a cocky smile on his face that any rational person would love to smack off his face. At this point I say to him

‘Please don’t do this’

But all he does is laugh, then he grabs me round the front of my collar and pulls me towards him, then he demandingly says to me in what he tries to make a hard voice

‘Give me a fucking fag’

At this point I look around and two of his friends turn their backs and step away and the other looks on with excitement in his face. I have two choices, one is to look frightened and the other is defend myself as he has touched me without my consent so this means he has assaulted my and I am aloud to defend myself. I look at the other friend that looks excited and flip the lid off my coffee and chuck it at him in his face, he turns and shouts out what only I can describe as a feminine girly cry. At this point I take hold of the aggressor’s wrist and lock it in to my chest where he has grabbed and rotate it which locks his arm out and then kick him, not too hard in the stomach as he bends over. I keep hold of his wrist locking his arm and look around at his mates. Two hold their hands up as if to say I don’t want to have any part of this, and the other kneeling on the pavement crying. I slowly let go asking the one in a little of pain,

‘Is this the end of this’

‘Yes, let go, it hurts, I’m sorry’

I let go and slowly let go and walk away but I don’t turn my back on them as they could get up and attack again. I walk backwards for about five to ten paces then carry on my way but every so often I still look back until I can’t see them anymore. What a bunch of idiots , why do we have to have people in the world like this?, why can’t we all just get along no matter what we look like, whatever religion and no matter who we are?.

I get to work at about 07:15 and walk into the reception and hand in my I.D and collect my keys and head off to the ward I am working on. I walk into the ward and head to the nurse in charge office for hand over. There must be three staff there two I usually work with and one I don’t know, but that doesn’t matter as we are always grateful no matter who they are, as long as they will pull their weight when working. What I mean by this is as long as they TRY and communicate or interact with the patients is all we ask.

After handover I am put on an eyesight enhanced nursing with a patient that has urges to attack patients and self-harms. The overly paid doctors say that they are more risk to other patients and attacking them. This only happens when they are due to be taken off enhanced nursing. The nursing team wants this patient to be taken off enhanced nursing and we will deal with whatever happens. The doctors say different and they call most of the shots when they are about, what can I say?

I come on the ward and see that the patients are still down the bed room corridor either in their beds or having a shower attending to their hygiene. I go and sit on the constant I have been signed to and see that he is awake but sitting in bed reading a boot.

‘Morning how are you’? I ask.

‘You on me this morning?’ he asks.

‘Yes I am sorry’

He gives me a smile and continues to read his book. He lets me know that he is reading a book by Chris Ryan and it is his latest book so far. It is about a man from the Special Forces and he has to try and save his girlfriend from some drug dealers that have links to drug lords in Iraq. I sit down and let him know that it sounds interesting, and to let me know how it turns out as in is it worth a buy? I look at the time and it is about 08:15 and the rest of the patients have woken up, some have a shower or bath and some just get dressed and don’t bother with their hygiene. That’s the thing with some patients, they don’t want to attend to their hygiene due to their diagnosis.

We enter the day area and I am following my patient who is known as Carl. He is on enhanced nursing and has to be on eye sight 24/7 due to his aggression to himself and others but mainly others. I enter the day area and see that Carl goes and sits at the dining table and waits for breakfast. I go over and sit with him and ask him about how his night went. Carl tells me he went to his room and had a shower and sat on his bed for a while and read his book. At about 22:15 someone created an incident and most of the nurses went and responded and it looked like a few other nurses responded from other wards. When he told me this I did not react or make a judgement as he is known to twist the truth at times and make complaints to the management staff about the team I am working with. What you got to understand is that this patient is also known for being paranoid. So if people talk quietly near him, he may think that they are talking about him and it could turn aggressive, whether it be to others or himself. Whilst we sit at the table and he eats his breakfast which is toast and a cup of coffee, I notice a patient looking at him and smirking in a malicious way Carl slams his cup down and gives one hell of an evil look and shouts out

‘What the hell did you say?’

Looking frightened the other patient replies,

‘Err, nothing, what the hell you on about?’

Carl stands up nocking his plate off the table and I stand up straight away and stand in front of Carl holding out my right hand saying

‘Carl don’t do this, sit back down’

‘NOW’ as I raise my voice for him to hear I mean business.

Carl looks at me and smiles, at this point I realise that this is about to turn out heavy, and get ready to stop Carl. Other staff stop what they are doing but don’t stand as this may antagonise him into doing something, I look around to look at other staff and two of them give me a nod and a smile as if to say ‘we are ready’. Carl starts to walk round the table and walks to the other patient. At this point the other patient gets up and starts to walk away saying,

‘Keep the fuck away from me, you twat’

One member of staff walks to the patient walking away and tries to guide him to the day area to safety. Myself and Kevin, the other staff member stand tall in front of Carl to block his way. Carl starts to shout out at the patient,

‘I’m going to fucking kill you, you twat’.

Carl suddenly makes a charge at the patient and Kevin grabs Carl by the arm hoping to stop him going for the patient. But at this point Carl stops and looks at Kevin as if he was going to give him a pasting. At this point I reach forward to grab his left arm but Carl is too quick for me and he catches Kevin in the nose. Kevin’s head flicks back as Carl’s fist connects with his nose and the blood splatters everywhere. I feel the blood hit my face and I can taste the blood in my mouth, kind of a metallic taste. I reach round and take hold of Carl by the shoulders and bring him backwards, as I do this he falls backwards to the floor and the rest of the team join in to restrain Carl, to control the possibility of a potential violent situation. Carl screams out,

‘You fucking dick I’m going to kill you when I get free from these twats’.

A nursing assistant that has a good rapport with him tries to talk to him letting him know that the other guy is just trying to wind you up and make you lose your community exposure. After about ten minutes the talking is not working and it is just winding you up. Still the threats are coming from Carl which is unlike him as usually he calms down when he is in restraint. One of the qualified nurses and comes over and says that Carl has not had his medication for the past three to four days and this is why his paranoia is getting the better of him. As the qualified nurse approaches Carl kicks out and kicks him flat point in the knee and the nurse known as Tim collapses to the floor screaming in pain. As this happens it appears that Tim’s leg doubles backwards and we hear a crack or a snap as Carl’s foot connects with Tim’s Knee. I shout out to another member of staff call for a medical emergency. While some staff attend to Tim, myself and Kevin relocate Carl to seclusion, which is a room to take patients that are too aggressive to be on the ward for the time being. Carl I place in the room face down with on the floor with his hands behind his back and we exit the seclusion room shutting the door as we leave the seclusion room. A new member of staff volunteers to observe Carl while he is in seclusion which he was secluded at 09:00.

I return into the dining area to where Tim is still laying on the floor and see that no one has taken him into the nursing office,

‘What the hell, why has no one taken him out the way?’

I attempt to lift Tim up and walk him slowly into the nursing office, as he hops in a lot of pain on each hop. Once in the office Tim sits on a chair with a huge breath of release. After about fifteen minutes the emergency services arrive and ask what has happened. Whilst this is going on I can see one or two staff appear upset as well as some of the patients. The paramedics attempt to put Tim on the stretcher and move him off out of the ward to hospital.

To me this is just another day on the ward, but not with the injury of staff like this. It is a rare occurrence that injuries happen, but maybe that the staff member should not have walked straight on into a situation like this but come in from side on. In any potentially situation staff should never come on front ways always come on from the side or from the back if possible.

At the end of the shift it is about 19:30 and it has been a long day and some of the staff are going to have a beer or two in the local pub. Luckily the pub is on the way home for me and I would pass it driving or walking. So I catch a lift with Sarah who is one of the qualified nurses and ring my wife just to let her know what I am doing. We reach the pub at about 20:00 by the time everyone meets up and I have a Fosters and sit chilling and talking about how the day has gone. After about thirty minutes I walk off to the hospital just to find out how Tim is doing. I walk into the A&E department and head to reception and explain who I am and that I am asking after my colleague who come in by ambulance with a possibly busted knee. After about five minutes waiting the nurse comes back and says that he has gone home with his wife in a cast and it was a broken knee cap.

I return home after about fifty minutes after finishing and let some of the staff know what has happened to Tim. As usual no one texts me back and I chill by talking to my wife about how the day had gone some of it good but some of it bad.

Some days it is good and some days it is bad, the only thing you never know is how it will be but how it could possibly be if the right people are there at the right time, this also depends on the patient and how willing they are to turn it around for them. The job is enjoyable and very rewardable but it has it trials as well, but remember that the people are there for particular reasons. So remember do not judge just be nice and understanding.